This week the LSC Schools Cricket Competition was held at Whalley Range Cricket Club, and we couldn’t have picked a better day.
Little Sports Coaching run Primary Schools Competitions each half term for our partner schools and the wider school community, and this half term it was an sunny afternoon of cricket.
The LSC Schools Competitions are a mix of familiar sports that we’re sure most teams will have competed in before, and sports that schools may never have played competitively. We have received great feedback about both styles and this was no different!
Once all the teams had arrived we sat down and briefed the teachers, coaches and players about how the afternoon would run. This included a short explanation of the rules and format, but most importantly we wanted everyone to know that the players enjoyment was the number one priority!
Teams came from St Aiden’s RC Wythenshawe, Ravensbury Clayton, Harmony Trust Oldham, St Philips CofE Manchester, St Paul’s CofE Brinnington, St Cuthbert’s RC Withington and Greenbank Preparatory Cheadle Hulme.
Group matches started on time and as the players got to grips with the size of the pitches and the equipment we really started to see some brilliant cricket played.
As coaches the LSC team were on hand to help with parts of the match format people had seen for the first time, as well as batting, bowling and fielding tips. We were really impressed with how quickly some children were picking things up. During the group games everyone was talking about catches as we saw 4 or 5 running diving catches, players holding onto balls dropping from a height, and grabbing catches a couple of inches off the ground!
LSC has inclusion high on its agenda so we vary our competitions, some we run in a couple of hours after school, and some we use a whole afternoon to suit different timetables and schools. So having more time and the weather on our side we were able to progress every team through to the quarter final, and once teams were knocked out at the quarter final stage we had pitches free to play friendlies.
As the knockout rounds progressed Greenbank narrowly won one semi final against Harmony Trust going down to an extremely nervy last over! The other semi was won by a well coached St Paul’s team, setting up a repeat match of the group stage match between Greenbank and St Paul’s, with Greenbank running out winners. We congratulated everyone for their efforts and there were smiles all round as we presented runners up medals and winners medals, and the LSC Schools Cricket Competition shield!
Runners up – St Paul’s
A massive thank you to all teams and supporters who contributed to a brilliant afternoon! We’ll be back next month at Whalley Range for our rounders competition, so keep your eyes on your emails for the invitations!
